I Play Favorites With My Twins

When I found out I was having twin girls, I promised myself I would always treat them like individuals, not like a unit. I would not dress them alike. I would not give them matching names. I wanted to be sure they would grow up to be independent, self confident, and able to function in the world as solitary adults someday.

I knew from the very beginning I would not treat them the same.

As they've grown, I've found that I am always harder on one than the other. I am quicker to snap at her, I am more demanding of her, I am slower to praise.

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It makes me feel like a monster sometimes, but the fact is there. I really seem to play favorites with my 6-year-old twins.

The truth is that they are completely different people. The truth is that one twin is eager to please me, quick to do what I ask, and to go above and beyond in the realm of chores. She is sly and coy, batting her eyelashes to get what she wants with a "pretty pretty please" that oozes sweetness.

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The other twin is a bit antisocial. She has her head in the clouds, always daydreaming. She has sensory issues that make her unfathomably slow to do things like put on her socks and shoes. She ignores me when I call her.

She is also the smartest person I've ever met in my life, and my expectations for her are higher than those I have for her sister.

With a near photographic memory, she began learning words by sight at 3, and started kindergarden reading at a third or fourth grade level. She has an encyclopedic memory for animal facts. She loves to learn, and wants to be an ornithologist when she grows up.

And when she does grow up, I have no doubt she will harbor a great deal of resentment towards me for treating her twin sister so much better.

Her twin sister is also brilliant, but more modestly so. She reads, but in a way that's appropriately impressive for a 6-year-old. She sometimes forgets to put on her shoes and socks, but not because she's obstinately tuning me out when I speak. She wants to be a mommy when she grows up, or a writer, anything that will make her just like me.

I'm utterly in love with both of them, they both make me proud all the time. One with her innate brilliance and goodness, one with how hard she tries and how proud she is when she achieves something difficult. Very little is difficult for her sister.

If you looked beneath the surface of me treating one twin like the favorite, you might find that I seem to act like the other twin is more capable, has more potential, that I believe in her success more.

That's not really true, either. The fact is that I don't have a favorite twin. I have one who requires a more aggressive parenting style. And I have one who usually tries to beat the expectations I have of her and to make herself useful.

They are both my daughters, born at the same time, raised with the same concern and care. I do not love either of them more, or better. I have children who are as different from each other as sisters can be, and I must be a different mother to each of them.

So when one of them cries, I am more likely to tell her to calm down rather than immediately cuddling her. When one of them doesn't do as she's told, I'm more likely to yell instead of explain for the tenth time why it's important. When one of them reads a book aloud to me, I'm more likely to tell her to let me finish the dishes than to exclaim my pride.

Someday, I hope they'll understand I only tried to do what I needed to give them both what they needed, and what they needed was not the same. They are both brilliant, beautiful, and vulnerable. But they do not share the same brilliance, or beauty, or vulnerability.

Right now they're two little girls who sometimes think I have a favorite twin, and right now there's little I can do to show them they're wrong.